Monday, March 30, 2009

The last class I attended, way back in 2007, was a three-unit penalty course I had to take for exceeding the university’s Maximum Residency Rule and the last hurdle left before I can finally finish my master’s degree in Social Development Studies. And it turned out to be a real punishment, indeed.

Since I was already living here in Manila then, I had to endure the weekly seven-hour torturous bus ride to Baguio to attend my three-hour class, and then immediately after another seven-hour bus ride back to Manila. Every week we are assigned a couple of inches thick of inscrutable articles, chapters and multiply cross-referred references, all of which we are required to read and write a short paper about containing our supposedly distilled, but often inchoate, thoughts and ideas. Having to read, understand and integrate each article into one coherent whole, initially inside my head, and then be able to transfer it on paper is a daunting--almost impossible and seemingly interminable--task.

It is a marvel to me, until now, how I survived that bloody semester. What I’m entirely sure of is how I miss every gory detail of it. I miss school.

I miss those sleepless nights I spent reviewing for long exams. With adrenaline running high, what kept me awake all night long was this one obsessive thought: I must get a 1.0 for this exam. I miss all the research – all the blood, sweat and tears - that goes behind crafting a paper. And the heightened feeling I get from earning a good grade afterwards is truly incomparable. I miss the challenge of making sense of the abstruse ramblings of ancient and contemporary philosophers and social theorists. I miss those frequent intellectual orgies with my classmates. I miss the interaction inside the classroom whose sheer informality nullifies the usual teacher-student distinctions and enables everyone to be a learner, instead.

going to school is a lot of fun...especially in masters where all of your classmates has a piece of something....where most has a brilliant idea...where issues became a debate and at the end of the class you eat at a nice and cozy place using your own money...I also love the idea that you send yourself to school at your own expense...makes you even proud! miss school also...